Apache server ignores .htaccess

Question

I'm trying to get a website working on my test environment, but somehow it is not working. I can load the normal index page, but when I want to access /page/test it throws an error saying the page does not exists. My log says:

File does not exist: /home/page_url/www/page

Which is in fact true, but it should got to my Page controller instead and load the test method.

My .htaccess looks like:

# Turn on URL rewriting
RewriteEngine On

# Installation directory
RewriteBase /

# Protect hidden files from being viewed
<Files .*>
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny From All
</Files>

# Protect application and system files from being viewed
RewriteRule ^(?:application|modules|system)\b.* /$0 [L]

# Allow any files or directories that exist to be displayed directly
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# Rewrite all other URLs to index.php/URL
RewriteRule .* index.php/$0 [PT]

My vhost configuration looks like:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName page_url
    Include /etc/apache2/vhosts.d/vhco.include
    DocumentRoot "/home/page_url/www/"

    # Logging
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access_log common
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error_log

    # This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
    <Directory "/home/page_url/www/">
        # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
        # or any combination of:
        #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
        #
        # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
        # doesn't give it to you.
        #
        # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
        # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
        # for more information.
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

        # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
        # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
        #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
        AllowOverride All

        # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from All 
    </Directory>

    <IfModule alias_module>
        # Redirect: Allows you to tell clients about documents that used to
        # exist in your server's namespace, but do not anymore. The client
        # will make a new request for the document at its new location.
        # Example:
        #   Redirect permanent /foo http://www.example.com/bar

        # Alias: Maps web paths into filesystem paths and is used to
        # access content that does not live under the DocumentRoot.
        # Example:
        #   Alias /webpath /full/filesystem/path
        #
        # If you include a trailing / on /webpath then the server will
        # require it to be present in the URL.  You will also likely
        # need to provide a <Directory> section to allow access to
        # the filesystem path.

        # ScriptAlias: This controls which directories contain server scripts.
        # ScriptAliases are essentially the same as Aliases, except that
        # documents in the target directory are treated as applications and
        # run by the server when requested rather than as documents sent to the
        # client.  The same rules about trailing "/" apply to ScriptAlias
        # directives as to Alias.
        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/var/www/localhost/cgi-bin/"
    </IfModule>

    # "/var/www/localhost/cgi-bin" should be changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
    # CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
    <Directory "/home/page_url/www/">
        AllowOverride None
        Options None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

I'm using Gentoo.

Any help would be appreciated.

Fundamental

Answer 1

<Directory "/home/page_url/www/">
    AllowOverride None

This AllowOverride None disables .htaccess files from being read. See the manual.

Also, please bear in mind that there's nothing magical about .htaccess files. They are a crude workaround for not having full access to the server configuration. All they are is a piece of Apache configuration. If you have full access to the server configuration, you should be putting stuff like this into the vhost configuration, not .htaccess files.

Benevolent

Be sure to check in /etc/apache2/sites-available and in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf for configurations with AllowOverride None. Not doing this kept me from displaying a working version of my webpage for an entire meeting! – Tobacco

AllowOverride All fixes the problem – Overtop

Why should this be in the vhost config? You have to restart apache if it goes there, while the .htaccess doesn't require restarting anything. – Chigger

@AltimusPrime it's better for performance – Telescope

Answer 2

As Jim said, if you have full access to your server, you should just put everything in the server configuration files.

I reached here because I thought my server was ignoring my own htaccess/server configuration files. However, it turned out I had mod_expires and mod_rewrite disabled. After I had those two looked into, everything was working again as it should.

You can enable them by executing these commands:

sudo a2enmod expires
sudo a2enmod rewrite

Then restart apache

service apache2 restart

Hope this helps someone out there!

Lenity

Thanks. mod rewrite is not enough, I had to add expires. – Beggarweed

Answer 3

One thing to remember if your rewrite rules still don't work:

Also activate the ModRewrite module! It is not by default in Ubuntu.

See other answer here on how to do that.

Scandinavian

This was my problem. I had the module enabled but my .htaccess file was missing RewriteEngine on. That's what I get for messing up a copy/paste from another config! – Kunkel

Can you please make this into a complete answer? – Gabardine

Answer 4

In my case the problem was the permissions for .htaccess file.

Solution:

sudo chown apache:apache .htaccess

Jangro